Category Archives: virtue

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Creating order: Gardening

I am still writing on the virtue of order.  Yesterday I decided to not to just write about the virtue of order but also to put it in action by actually creating some order in my garden. It is a period of drought so gardening is not easy at present in the Cape Town area. One tends to think that there is no reason to be doing gardening if you cannot grow anything. In my case weed has grown and created a sore eye so I decided to cut the grass to at least great a neater view for the eye. I also invested in a weed eater to cut the weed down that grew against the walls. I placed a few boulders strategically to add to the visual appeal of the garden entrance.

In total, I spend about an hour in my garden but what a magnificent change it made.  That meager hour was well spent. When you walk into the yard it creates a whole new impression that is uplifting. Suddenly the space feels more open and welcoming. Even though it is still dry just a little bit of effort made a huge difference in the actual feel and experience of getting home and leaving home. I have done Fen Shui within the home but have not really extended my ideas to the outside.

The point is that creating order does not need to be a huge process. A mere hour spend differently can make a fundamental difference. I could have sat in front of the Television or just read and used coming back from work as the excuse for my laziness. However taking that little bit of effort to make a change and act on the intent to create more order in my life enabled me to make a shift. Interestingly enough last night was also the night I had the best deep sleep since the start of the year according to my smart band. It seems that the adage that a day of good work leads to better sleep worked this time.

I searched the internet for ideas to create more appealing gardens that is drought resistant. I placed the intent to continue to work in my garden in this year and make it look even better and more appealing despite the drought itself.

The bottom line is that creating order on a practical level brings many benefits in how we feel and experience life. Often people feel that if they are ordered then they will stifle creativity but the opposite is actually true. The moment we create order we ignite the principle of being creative and we can act more creatively. Order has its own set of benefits it brings to the emotions, mind and soul.

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The virtue of Order

Chaos is pure potential and order the extraction of that potential.  The world is enshrouded in chaos.  There is no single moment that we do not have to deal with some level of chaos. By bringing order into our lives we enable progress. Order is simply a process of designating everything a proper place so that we can make sense of the world.  I have to declutter on a regular basis else the chaos will escalate around me. Creating order is somewhat like going against the nature itself, except when you look at social groupings like bees that uses structure for their social cohesion. As beings of reason we ourselves are called to create order for the social cohesion of humanity as a whole. Too much order can however again stifle creativity and progress. Order should not create a constricted environment but must allow for change and adaptability.

On a practical level we create order when we clean our house, work in the garden or declutter our offices.  When things are ordered we increase the harmony within our environment as well as our own efficiency to do what we need to do.  When we order our physical environment we are in the process of training our mind to find order also in our mental designs.

Order begins by ordering the thoughts that passes through our mind. Reason in itself is a process of ordering thoughts. That is why there is a relationship between order and silence.  When we are silent we gain proper control over our thoughts to be able to bring them to order. Order allows us to know where things are and how things relate to each other.

Order makes it possible for us to share knowledge and information with each other. We string a particular set of letters in a sequence following rigid rules in order to communicate with each other accros time and space. At the same time we creat new words (new sequences) to depict meaning in the future that we did not need to depict in the past.

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Gratitude

My virtue focus this week is on gratitude so it might be worth while to stand still for a moment and ponder the significance of living in gratitude. It is a concept that has slowly matured for me towards a much riper fruit to eat. I heard of a practice where one write at the end of the day all the things you were truly grateful, date the entry and put it in a jar. Later one can open the jar and read all the gratitude entries. The gratitude referenced is not the type where you think about a constant like family and express your gratitude for them even though it might be valuable. The gratitude is for when you are given some blessing or receive some unexpected joy from something you have not expected. The purpose of this exercise is twofold…firstly to create an awareness of the blessings you received but also to train the subconscious mind to focus more acutely on the joys that is bestowed upon oneself. Gratitude does not need to wait for something huge to happen but it could be in the small things that gives momentarily joy. The exercise of gratitude is training the subconscious mind to rebuilt its trust in life and to be aware of the benevolence within nature. The repetitive expression of gratitude creates a habit to see that which is valuable in life and to put a proper value to it. On an spiritual alchemical level it is the transformation of small temporary events of happiness through gratitude into a life style of appreciation and long lasting joy. Each expression of gratitude lifts ones emotional standard level of well being a notch higher than before. When we experience some misfortune we will naturally balance back to that point we have set up on a higher level of satisfaction with life. So gratitude when express contributes directly to one’s own level of well being even if one has to initially force the awareness of gratitude. When we receive an unexpected blessing then gratitude is expressed with sincerity but if that blessing becomes a pattern and a flow of good we receive our gratitude lessons and it becomes something we just take for granted. The virtue of gratitude however ensures that we continue to evaluate and we use our reason constructively to see the things that are truly valuable. W do not get used to things but examine each thing to warrant our unbiased gratefulness where it is due. In summary gratitude provides a deeper sense of self-worth when we emerge ourselves in a world of abundant blessings. We are sensitised to the beauty of a world that often seems hostile and yet if we look closer we might see that even hostility is a blessing in disguise. When we can see all we experience in through the perspective of gratitude we have so much more energy for the day of tomorrow and a constancy in our step. I thank the universe sincerely for life today.